The Department of Health is today accused of allowing political considerations to prevail over the wellbeing of women who need an abortion in early pregnancy, by refusing to allow them to take the necessary pills in the comfort and security of their own home.

Britain's leading charitable abortion provider will challenge the government in the high court this month, arguing that the UK is out of line with most other countries.

Two sets of pills, taken 24 to 48 hours apart, are needed to bring about a "medical abortion" – as opposed to the surgical procedure – within the first nine weeks of pregnancy. While most other countries, including the US, allow women to take the second set of pills home so they can have some control over the timing and circumstances of the abortion, the UK does not.

Women who are legally entitled to a medical abortion must return to the clinic to take the second set of pills, which induce contractions in the uterus. Some fear that they may begin to miscarry on the way home. Almost all choose to go home after taking the pills, rather than undergo the abortion in the clinic.

Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which provides 17,500 medical abortions a year – around a quarter of the total – said the requirement to return to the clinic to take pills was regarded as "ludicrous and stupid" by experts in other countries.

After 10 years of trying to persuade the health department to change, BPAS has decided it must take legal action because of the rise in the number of women seeking medical rather than surgical abortion.

It had been clear, Furedi said, that health officials accepted that the scientific evidence showed that taking the pills at home was safe and effective. But governments – both Labour and now the coalition – were worried about newspaper headlines. Addressing a press conference, she said: "They are concerned that what we are proposing would be seen by yourselves [journalists] as making abortion easier and would be distorted by newspapers opposed to abortion services."

She said later: "It is astounding how terrified they are of the Daily Mail." Furedi said that the change would not make abortions easier to obtain, just less traumatic for women entitled to have one.

"What we really believe is that our clinical practice must be shaped by clinical evidence and not political convenience," she said. "The fact that it may be controversial and may provoke those who oppose abortion in principle to rally against these particular changes should not be a factor that we take into consideration."

The high court will be asked for an updated interpretation of the Abortion Act, which says any treatment for the termination of pregnancy must be carried out in a hospital or clinic. Lawyers for BPAS say that is compatible with drugs being prescribed in the clinic but taken at home.

The health department said the matter was for the courts to decide. But it believed that under the law, "both tablets used for medical abortion must be administered on premises which have been approved under the Abortion Act For this reason, the government is contesting this case.".